Chapter 11
I
"And
the color of my sound is a pale green," he heard behind him in tones as
sweet as a muted violin string, "while the form of my note fits into yours
just like a glove. Dear Spinny, don't tremble so. We shall always be together,
remember, you and I...."
And
when, turning, he saw Miriam at his side, radiant with her shining little smile
of welcome, the relief was so great that he took her in his arms and would not
let her go. She drew him tenderly away downstairs, for the clergyman, it
seemed, was still busy with something in the room, and had left them....
"I
know, I know," she said softly, making him sit down beside her on the
sofa, "I know the rush of pain and happiness it brings. It shifts the
whole key of your life, doesn't it? When I first went into my 'room' and
learned the letter I was to utter in the Name, I felt as if I could never come
back to ordinary things again, or--"
"What
name?" interrupted Spinrobin, drawing sharply away from her, and the same
second amazed at the recklessness that had prompted the one question he
dreaded.
The
inevitable reaction had come. He realized for the first time that there was an
alternative. All the passion of battle was upon him. The terrific splendors of
Skale's possible achievement dazzled the very windows of his soul, but at the
same time the sweet uses of normal human life called searchingly to him from
within. He had been circling about this fight for days; at last it was
unexpectedly upon him. He might climb to Skale's impossible Heaven, Skale's
outrageous Heaven ... on the wings of this portentous experience, or--he might
sink back into the stream of wholesome and commonplace life, with a delicious
little human love to companion him across the years, the unsoiled love of an
embryonic soul that he could train practically from birth. Miriam was beside
him, soft and yielding, ready, doubtless, to be molded for either path.
"What
name?" he repeated, holding his breath once the words were out.
"The
name, of course," she answered gently, smiling up into his eyes. "The
name I have lived to know and that you came here to learn, so that when our
voices sing and utter it together in the chord we shall both become--"
Spinrobin
set his mouth against her own to stop her speech. She yielded to him with her
whole little body. Her eyes smiled the great human welcome as she stared so
closely into his.
"Shall
become--what we are not now," he cried fiercely, drawing his face back,
but holding her body yet more closely to him. "Lose each other, don't you
see? Don't you realize that?"
"No,
no," she said faintly, "find each other--you mean--"
"Yes--if
all goes well!" He spoke the words very low. For perhaps thirty seconds
they stared most searchingly into each other's eyes, drawing slightly apart.
Very slowly her face, then, went exceedingly pale.
"If--all
goes well" she repeated, horrified. Then, after a pause, she added:
"You mean--that he might make a mistake--or--?"
And
Spinrobin, drinking in the sweet breath that bore the words so softly from her
lips, answered, measuring his words with ponderous gravity as though each
conveyed a sentence of life or death, "If--all--goes--well."
She
watched him with something of that utter clinging mother-love in her eyes that
claims any degree of suffering gladly rather than the loss of her
own--passionately welcoming misery in preference to loss. She, too, had divined
the alternative.
Then,
kissing his cheeks and eyes and lips, she untied his arms from about her neck
and ran, blushing furiously, from the room. And with her went doubt, for the
first time--doubt as to the success of the great experiment--doubt as to their
Leader's power.
II
And
while Spinrobin still sat there, trembling with the two passions that tore his
soul in twain--the passion to climb forbidden skies with Skale, and the passion
to know sweet human love with Miriam--there came thundering into the room no
less a personage than the giant clergyman, straight from those haunted rooms.
Pallor hung about his face, but there was a light radiating through it--a high,
luminous whiteness--that made the secretary think of his childhood's pictures
of the Hebrew prophet descending from Mount Sinai, the glory of internal
spheres still reflected upon the skin and eyes. Skale, like a flame and a wind,
came pouring into the room. The thing he had remained upstairs to complete had
clearly proved successful. The experiment had moved another stage--almost the
final one--nearer accomplishment.
The
reaction was genuinely terrific. Spinrobin felt himself swept away beyond all
power of redemption. Miriam and the delicious human life faded into
insignificance again. What, in the name of the eternal fires, were a girl's
lips and love compared to the possibilities of Olympian achievement promised by
Skale's golden audacities? Earth faded before the lights of heaven. The whole
tide of human emotion was nothing compared to a drop of this terrible salt
brine from seas in unknown stars.... As usual Skale's personality caught him up
into some seventh heaven of the soaring imagination.
"Spinrobin,
my glorious companion in adventure," thundered the clergyman, "your
note suits perfectly the chord! I am delighted beyond all words. You chime with
amazing precision and accuracy into the complex Master-Tone I need for the
proper pronunciation of the Name! Your coming has been an inspiration permitted
of Him who owns it." His excitement was profoundly moving. The man was in
earnest if ever man was. "We shall succeed!" And he caught him in his
arms. "For the Name manifests the essential attributes of the Being it
describes, and in uttering it we shall know mystical union with it.... We shall
be as Gods!"
"Splendid!
Splendid!" exclaimed Spinrobin, utterly carried away by this spiritual
enthusiasm. "I will follow you to the end--"
III
The
words were scarcely out of his mouth when framed in the doorway, delicate and
seductive as a witch, again stood Miriam, then moved softly forward into the
room. Her face was pale as the grave. Her little, delicate mouth was set with
resolution. Clearly she had overheard, but clearly also she had used the
interval for serious reflection.
"We
cannot possibly--fail, can we?" she asked, gliding up like a frightened
fawn to the clergyman's side.
He
turned upon her, stern, even terrible. So relentless was his swift appearance,
so implacable in purpose, that Spinrobin felt the sudden impulse to fly to her
assistance. But instantly his great visage broke into a smile like the smile of
thunderous clouds when unexpectedly the sun breaks through, then quickly hides
itself again.
"Everywhere,"
he roared, "true things are great and clean.... Have faith... have
faith...." And he looked upon them both as though his eyes would sweep
from their petty souls all vestige of what was afraid and immature. "We
all are--pure ... we all are true ... each calls his note in singleness of
heart ... we cannot fail!"
And
just here Spinrobin, a little beyond himself with excitement probably, pattered
across the room to his giant leader's side and peered up into his visage. He
stood on tiptoe, craning his neck forwards, then spoke very low:
"I
have the right, we have the right--for I have earned it--to be taken now fully
into confidence, and to know everything--everything," came the words; and
the reply, simple and immediate, that dropped back upon him through all that
tangle of ragged beard was brief and to the point:
"You
have. Listen, then--" And he led them both by the hand like two children
towards the sofa, and then, standing over them, began to speak.
IV
"I
seek," he said slowly and gravely, "the correct utterance of a
certain mighty and ineffable name, and in each of those four rooms lies a
letter of its first syllable. For all these years of research"--his voice
dropped suddenly--"have only brought me to that--the first syllable. And
the name itself is composed of four, each more mighty than the last."
A
violent trembling ran over both listeners. Spinrobin, holding a cold little
hand in his, dreaded unuttered sentences. For if mere letters could spell so
vast a message, what must be the meaning of a whole syllable, and what the dire
content of the completed name itself!
"Yes,"
Skale went on with a reverence born of profoundest awe, "the captured
sounds I hold are but the opening vibrations of this tremendous name, and the
task is of such magnitude that absolute courage and absolute faith are
essential. For the sounds are themselves creative sounds, and the consequences
in case of faulty utterance might be too appalling to contemplate--"
"Creative!"
fell from the little man on the sofa, aghast at the possibility. Yet the one
burning question that lay trembling just behind his lips dared not frame itself
in words, for there was something in Mr. Skale's face and manner that rendered
the asking of it not yet possible. The revelation of the name must wait.
"Even
singly, as you saw, their power is terrific," he went on, ignoring the
pathetic interruption, "but united--as we shall unite them while each of
us utters his letter and summons forth the entire syllable by means of the
chord--they will constitute a Word of Power which shall make us as Gods if
uttered correctly; if incorrectly, shall pour from this house to consume and
alter the surface of the entire world with the destructive tempest due to
mispronunciation and a lie."
Miriam
nestled closer into her companion's side. There was otherwise no sign outwardly
of the emotions that surged through the two little figures upon the sofa.
"And
now--now that you have this first syllable complete?" faltered a high and
sharing tenor voice.
"We
must transfer it to a home where it shall wait in silence and in safety until
we have also captured the other remaining three." Skale came forward and
lowered his mouth to his companions' ears. "We shall transfer it, as you
now understand, by chanting the four letters. Our living chord will summon
forth that first syllable into visible form and shape. Our four voices, thus
trained and purified, each singing a mighty letter, shall create the astounding
pattern of the name's first syllable--"
"But
the home," stammered Spinrobin; "this home where it shall await the
rest?"
"My
rooms," was the reply, "can contain letters only, for a whole
syllable I need a larger space. In the crypt-like cellars beneath this house I
have the necessary space all ready and prepared to hold this first syllable
while we work upon the second. Come, and you shall see!"
They
crossed the hall and went down the long stone passage beyond the dining room
till they reached a swinging baize door, and so came to the dark stairs that
plunged below ground. Skale strode first, Spinrobin following with beating
heart; he held Miriam by the hand; his steps, though firm enough, made him
think of his efforts as a boy when treading water for solid ground out of his
depth.
V
Cold
air met them, yet it was neither dank nor unpleasant as air usually is that has
never tasted sunlight. There was a touch of vitality about it wholly
remarkable. Miriam pressed closer. Every detail, every little incident that
brought them nearer to the climax was now interpreted by these two loving
children as something that might eventually spell for them separation. Yet
neither referred to it directly. The pain of the ultimate choice possessed them
deep within.
"Here,"
exclaimed the clergyman in a hushed tone that yet woke echoes on all sides,
while he lit a candle and held it aloft, "you see the cellar vaults all
ready for the first great syllable when our chord shall bring it leaping down
from the rooms upstairs. Here will reside the pattern of the name's opening
syllable till we shall have accomplished the construction of the others."
And
like some august master of forbidden ceremonies, looking twice his natural size
as the shadows played tricks with his arms and shoulders, merging his outline
into walls and ceiling, Skale stood and looked about him.
Spaces
stretched away on all sides as in the crypt of a cathedral, most beautifully
and harmoniously draped with the separate colors of the four rooms, red,
yellow, violet and green; immense gongs, connected apparently with some
intricate network of shining wires, hung suspended in midair beneath the
arches; rising from the floor were gigantic tuning forks, erect and silent,
immediately behind which gaped artificial air-cavities placed to increase the
intensity of the respective notes when caught; and in the dim background the
clergyman pointed out an elaborate apparatus for quickly altering the
temperature of the air, and another for the rapid production of carbonic acid
gas, since by means of a lens of carbonic acid gas sound can be refracted like
light, and by changing the temperature of the air that conveys it, sound can be
bent, also like a ray of light, in any desired direction. The whole cellar
seemed in some way to sum up and synthesize the distinctive characteristics of
the four rooms. Over it all, sheeting ceiling and walls, lay the living and
receptive wax. Singularly suggestive, too, was the appearance of those huge
metal discs, like lifeless, dark faces waiting the signal to open their bronze
lips and cry aloud, ready for the advent of the Sound that should give them
birth and force them to proclaim their mighty secret. Spinrobin stared, silent
and fascinated, almost expecting them to begin there and then their dreadful
and appalling music.
Yet
the place was undeniably empty; no ghost of a sound stirred the gorgeous
draperies; nothing but a faint metallic whispering seemed to breathe out from
the big discs and forks and wires as Skale's voice, modulated and hushed though
it was, vibrated gently against them. Nothing moved, nothing uttered, nothing
lived--as yet.
"Destitute
of all presence, you see it now," whispered the clergyman, shading the
candle with one huge hand; "though before long, when we transfer our great
captured syllable down here, you shall know it alive and singing with a
thousand thunders. The Letters shall not escape me. The gongs and colors
correspond exactly. They will retain both the sounds and the outlines ... and
the wax is sensitive as the heart of a child." And his big face shone quite
dreadfully as the whole pomp and splendor of his dream come true set fire to
his thoughts.
But
Spinrobin was glad when at length they turned and moved slowly again up the
stone steps and emerged into the pale December daylight. That dark cellar,
wired, draped, waxed and be-gonged, awaiting its mighty occupant, filled his
mind with too vast a sensation of wonder and anticipation for peace.
"And
for the syllables to follow," Skale resumed when they were once more in
the library, "we shall want spaces larger still. There are great holes in
these hills"--stretching out an arm to indicate the mountains above the
house--"and down yonder in the heart of those cliffs by the sounding sea
there are caverns. They are far, but the distance is of no consequence. They
will serve us well. I know them. I have marked them. They are ready."
He
swept his beard to and fro with one hand. Spinrobin already saw those holes and
caverns in the terms of sound and color.
"And--for
the entire name--when completed?" he asked, knowing that the question was
but a feeble substitute for that other one he burned to ask, yet dared not
allow his lips to utter. Skale turned and looked at him. He raised his hands
aloft. His voice boomed again as of old.
"The
open sky!" he cried with enthusiasm; "the vault of heaven itself! For
no solid structure exists in the world, not even the ribs of these old hills,
that could withstand the power of that--of that eternal and terrific--"
Spinrobin
leapt to his feet. The question swept from his lips at last like a flame.
Miriam clung to his arm, trying in vain to stop him.
"Then
tell me," he cried aloud, "tell me, you great blasphemer, whose is
the Name that you seek to utter under heaven ... and tell me why it is my soul
faints and is so fearfully afraid?"
Mr.
Skale looked at him for a moment as a man might look at some trifling
phenomenon of life that puzzled yet interested him. But there was love in his
eyes--love, and the forgiveness of a great soul. Spinrobin, afraid at his own
audacity, met his eyes recklessly, while Miriam peered from one to the other,
perplexed and questioning.
"Spinrobin,"
said the clergyman at length, in a voice turned soft and tender with
compassion, "the name I seek--this awful name we may all eventually utter
together, completely formed--is one that no living man has spoken for nigh two
thousand years, though all this time the search has been kept alive by a few
men in every age and every country of the world. Some few, they say--ah, yes,
they say--have found it, then instantly forgotten it again; for once pronounced
it may not be retained, but goes utterly lost to the memory on the instant.
Only once, so far as we may know"--he lowered his voice to a hushed and reverent
whisper that thrilled about them in the air like the throbbing of a
string--"has it been preserved: the Prophet of Nazareth, purer and simpler
than all other men, recovered the correct utterance of the first two syllables,
and swiftly--very swiftly--phonetically, too, of necessity,--wrote them down
before the wondrous memory had time to fade; then sewed the piece of parchment
into his thigh, and hence 'had Power' all his life.
"It
is a name," he continued, his tone rising to something of its old thunder,
"that sounds like the voice of many waters, that piles the ocean into
standing heaps and makes the high hills to skip like little lambs. It is a name
the ancient Hebrews concealed, as Tetragrammaton, beneath a thousand devices,
the name, they said, that 'rusheth through the universe,' to call upon
which--that is, to utter correctly--is to call upon that name which is far
above all others that can be named--"
He
paused midway in the growing torrent of his speech and lifted his companion out
of the sofa. He set him upon his feet, holding both his hands and peering deep
into his eyes--those bewildered yet unflinching blue eyes of the little man who
sought terrific adventure as an escape from insignificance--
"--to
know which," he added, in a sudden awed whisper, "is to know the
ultimate secrets of life and death, and to read the riddle of the world and the
soul--to become even as itself--Gods."
He
stopped abruptly, and again that awful, flaming smile ran over his face,
flushing it from chin to forehead with the power of his burning and tremendous
belief.
Spinrobin
was already weeping inwardly, without sound. He understood at last, only too
well, what was coming. Skale's expression held the whole wild glory, and the
whole impious audacity of what seemed his blasphemous spiritual discovery. The
fires were alight in his eyes. He stooped down lower and opened wide his
capacious arms. The next second, Spinrobin, Miriam, and Mrs. Mawle, who had
unexpectedly come upon them from behind, were gathered all together against his
breast. His voice then dropped suddenly to a tiny whisper of awful joy that
seemed to creep from his lips like some message too mighty to be fully known,
and half lost itself among the strands of his beard.
"My
wonderful redeemed children, notes in my human chord," he whispered over
their heads, "it is the Name that shall make us as God, for it is none
other than the Name that rusheth through the universe"--his breath failed
him most curiously for an instant--"the NAME OF THE ALMIGHTY!"
